Cooking chicken in "pepitoria"

A recipe with close links to Madrid which became popular in the 19th century and is still a fixture in homes all across the country.

Ingredients: Chicken, almonds, onion, yolk of 2 hard-boiled eggs, oil, salt, pepper, garlic, white wine, saffron, parsley, and bay leaf. The chicken portions are fried, and a sauce is made with the rest of the ingredients, in which the bird is then cooked.

The pepitoria is thought to be of Arab origin. It appears in 16th-century cookbooks and in the "New Art of Cooking," an important 18th-century culinary treatise by the monk who published under the pseudonym "Juan de Altamiras." Originally it would have been made using the carcass of the poultry, although over time it was cooked with hen, and these days also with chicken. Ground almonds are also added to enrich the flavor.